Cracking down on drug abuse Drop boxes to be placed in several locations for prescription drug disposal

With prescription drug abuse becoming an increasingly lethal issue in
Effingham County, several organizations are banding together in an effort to
get these potentially deadly drugs off the street.
Secure drop boxes will be placed in several locations for drug disposal
within the next month as part of the P2D2 program. Effingham County Chief
Deputy John Loy said Monday that boxes will be placed on the first floor of
both the Effingham County Office Building and Effingham County Government
Center, the Illinois State Police District 12 headquarters in Effingham,
Altamont Municipal Building and Altamont Pharmacy.
Loy said the boxes can be put anywhere with either human or video
surveillance.
³We¹re still looking for locations to put them,² he said. ³The drugs will
be picked up by bonded couriers and then destroyed.²
Coroner Leigh Hammer said the program will hopefully lessen the incidence
of prescription drug abuse cases that, sadly, turn into fatalities.
³It¹s a big project,² said Hammer, who added that drugs can also be
dropped off at the Effingham County Health Department.
Hammer said there have been 12 to 15 deaths in the county resulting from
prescription drug abuse in the past three years. Prescription drug abuse
became more widely known in the area after a combination of aggressive
enforcement and legislative action dramatically reduced methamphetamine
abuse in rural Illinois.
The program is being facilitated by the Effingham County Youth Ambassador
program, an outgrowth of the University of Illinois Extension 4-H program.
Several ambassadors appeared at Monday¹s County Board meeting.
³4-H isn¹t just about the animals,² said St. Anthony High School student
Jesse Haarmann.
Other ambassadors appearing at Monday¹s meeting included Abby Westendorf
of Teutopolis, Michael Goldstein of St. Anthony and Ethan Fitzwilliam of
Altamont. Westendorf thanked the board for its service to the county.
Hammer praised the group after the meeting for its work.
³I applaud them for stepping forward and taking leadership roles,² she
said.
The board took little action at Monday¹s brief meeting, though it did
hear from John Schuler of the Post Oak Flats Resource Conservation and
Development organization. Post Oak Flats is a federally-funded non-profit
organization with a multi-faceted mission.
Schuler told the board that one of the agency¹s primary missions in
recent years has been to stimulate entrepreneurship in its five-county
coverage area, which includes Effingham, Clay, Fayette, Jasper and Marion
counties. Post Oak Flats has assisted the Effingham County high school CEO
entrepreneurship class, for example.
In action taken Monday, the board voted 6-1 to buy an ad for the county
map distributed by the Greater Effingham Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Board vice chairman Bob Shields was the only person to vote against the ad,
while board members Rob Arnold and Jim Reeves were absent.
Shields said he didn¹t see how the money spent on the ad would
significantly help county taxpayers.
³It¹s not that maps are a bad thing, and I¹m not trying to criticize the
board members who voted for it, but I just don¹t see how the taxpayer
benefits from this at a time when we are trying to save money,² Shields
said.